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"Mats Utas"
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Private security in Africa : from the global assemblage to the everyday
Across Africa, growing economic inequality, instability and urbanisation have led to the rapid spread of private security providers. While these 'PSPs' have already had a significant impact on African societies, their impact has so far received little in the way of comprehensive analysis. Drawing on a wide range of disciplinary approaches, and encompassing anthropology, sociology, and political science, this book offers unique insight into the lives and experiences of security providers and those affected by them, as well as into the fragile state context which has allowed them to thrive.
Book
Private security in Africa
Across Africa, growing economic inequality, instability and urbanization have led to the rapid spread of private security providers. While these PSPs have already had a significant impact on African societies, their impact has so far received little in the way of comprehensive analysis. Drawing on a wide range of disciplinary approaches, and encompassing anthropology, sociology and political science, Private Security in Africa offers unique insight into the lives and experiences of security providers and those affected by them, as well as into the fragile state context which has allowed them to thrive. Featuring original empirical research and case studies ranging from private policing in South Africa to the recruitment of Sierra Leoneans for private security work in Iraq, the book considers the full implications of PSPs for security and the state, not only for Africa but for the world as a whole.
eBook
African conflicts and informal power
In the aftermath of an armed conflict in Africa, the international community both produces and demands from local partners a variety of blueprints for reconstructing state and society. The aim is to re-formalize the state after what is viewed as a period of fragmentation. In reality, African economies and polities are very much informal in character, with informal actors, including so-called Big Men, often using their positions in the formal structure as a means to reach their own goals. Through a variety of in-depth case studies, including the DRC, Sierra Leone and Liberia, this comprehensive volume shows how important informal political and economic networks are in many of the continent's conflict areas. Moreover, it demonstrates that without a proper understanding of the impact of these networks, attempts to formalize African states, particularly those emerging from wars, will be in vain.
eBook
The Crisis in CAR: Navigating Myths and Interests
\"Anarchy\", \"religious war\", \"genocide\" and, recently, \"cannibalism\" — these are some of the most commonly used words in Western news media when referring to the crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR), at least since the takeover of power by the rebel coalition Séléka in March 2013. In the context of these media stereotypes, this article unravels some of the complexities that have arisen in the CAR conflict since the fall of the Bozizé regime and the Séléka takeover. We show how international actors have been pivotal in shaping the current crisis in the country. In order to help steer CAR out of its predicament, we show how important it is that international peacekeeping operations, policy-makers and diplomats understand not only the situation on the ground but also the close ties major groups in CAR have with various regional and other international actors. If context awareness remains scant, there is a serious risk that their activities will at best be suboptimal and at worst aid in fuelling the crisis. \"Anarchie\", \"Religionskrieg\", \"Genozid\" und in jüngster Zeit auch \"Kannibalismus\" — das sind einige der meistgebrauchten Begriffe in westlichen Medien, wenn es um die Krise in der Zentralafrikanischen Republik (ZAR) geht, spätestens seit der Machtübernahme der Rebellenkoalition Séléka im März 2013. Die Autoren des Beitrags greifen diese Stereotype in den Medien auf und versuchen, die unübersichtliche Lage zu entwirren, die seit dem Fall des Bozizé-Regimes und der Machtübernahme von Séléka in der ZAR entstanden ist. Sie verweisen auf die entscheidende Rolle internationaler Akteure bei der Entstehung der derzeitigen Krise. Aus ihrer Sicht sollten Leiter internationaler Friedensoperationen, Politiker und Diplomaten nicht nur über die grundlegenden Fakten Bescheid wissen, sondern auch die engen Bindungen der wichtigsten Gruppen in der ZAR zu verschiedenen regionalen und internationalen Akteuren berücksichtigen, um zu einer Lösung der Krise beizutragen. Solange sie diese Zusammenhänge nicht durchschauen, besteht die große Gefahr, dass ihre Aktivitäten bestenfalls suboptimal sind und schlimmstenfalls zur Verschärfung der Krise beitragen.
Journal Article
Victimcy, Girlfriending, Soldiering: Tactic Agency in a Young Woman's Social Navigation of the Liberian War Zone
This study aims to collapse the often gendered opposition of agency and victimhood that typically characterizes the analysis of women's coping strategies in war zones. The term victimcy is proposed to describe the agency of self-staging as victim of war and explore how it is deployed as one tactic—amongst others—in one young Liberian woman's \"social navigation\" of war zones. Victimcy is thus revealed as a form of self-representation by which a certain form of tactic agency is effectively exercised under the trying, uncertain, and disempowering circumstances that confront actors in warscapes. However the story of Bintu also reveals the complexity of women's strategies, roles, and options as they confront conflicting challenges and opportunities in war zones. While in some circumstances women may take humanitarian aid, in others they may also take up arms. An ethnography of social tactics thus counters reductionist portrayals of women in war zones as merely the passive victims of conflict.
Journal Article
Introduction Urban kinship: the micro-politics of proximity and relatedness in African cities
In combination with the projected population growth on the continent, concerns are raised about the challenges that these expansions will pose to social services, urban infrastructures and labour markets, from Cairo to Cape Town and from Dar es Salaam to Dakar (UN Habitat 2014).[...]the sense of an explosively growing, uncontrollable urban landscape in Africa has been a dominant force in urban theory for decades, with - at times - alarmist undertones (Robinson 2010).[...]the recent scholarship on African cities as amorphous and revolutionary social spheres paradoxically tends to leave urban residents as voiceless as they are in the quantitative analyses of urbanization rates and infrastructural collapse.[...]of our engagements with their narratives and experiences, we therefore explore in this special issue how urban residents claim social and cultural continuity in the context of everyday life in African cities.
Journal Article
The Gift of Violence: Ex-Militias and Ambiguous Debt Relations during Post-War Elections in Sierra Leone
This article explores the political mobilization of ex-militias for support during post-war elections in Sierra Leone. Taking its point of departure from the tension between ex-militias' potential for deployment and displacement of violence, it illuminates the ambiguous ways in which ex-militia members engage with political big men. The article suggests that the notion of debt can be employed as a prism to explain the complexities of social relations between ex-militia rank-and-file members and political elites and thus aims at shedding novel light on how big men systems and patronage work in post-war society, most notably in the political domain. By tracing particular relations between ex-militia members and political big men over time, the article empirically unravels the enduring yet ambiguous nature of debt relations and how they are shaped by and give shape to “the gift of violence.”
Journal Article
Introduction Urban kinship
African cities have long been perceived as emblematic of the vibrancy and contradictions that characterize public spheres in an African context – from breathtaking monuments of wealth and oppression to overwhelming destitution and despair; from vibrant market places and artistic expression to dilapidated infrastructures and rampant criminality. Through depictions of the hectic pace of different forms of movement – from the inner-city traffic that seems to be buzzing even in the midst of a complete standstill to public protests and food riots – African cities become lenses through which social and political life is assessed and synthesized; a canvas on which national politics and global inequalities are laid bare, for all to see. Indeed, the visual has long been the preferred prism for documenting and evoking the dynamism and decay of urban Africa. Many of these dualities hold some truths but have also contained the enduring simplifications of prejudice and exoticization. The ‘urban jungle’ is easily seen as the continent’s true Heart of Darkness; a pre-conceptualized dystopia (Robinson 2010); a micro-cosmos of the most frightening and fascinating facets of primitive humanity. This special issue challenges such simplifications by emphasizing everyday sociality, and by giving priority to the narratives and practices of urban residents themselves.
Journal Article
